Apocryphal Apocalypse

Dudes, I love a good disaster story as much as the next guy. Probably more, considering my shelves are packed with just those kind books.

Still, even with my penchant for disaster stories, for end-of-the-world fiction, for zombie apocalypse shows and lurching horrors of eldritch origins, all that. . . Even with all that, I still don’t believe the world is going to end on Dec. 21, 2012. And I certainly don’t believe the Mayan calendar is predicting the end of the world on just that date.

I mean, seriously? You want me to not buy Christmas presents for a trio of relatively young dudes and a wonderful, loving women (who now is reading these things a lot ore often which necessitates a much more. . . balanced? approach to writing about her) because a bunch of pale nutjobs wanted a little existential drama in their lives?

Yeah. No. I don’t think so.

This really is getting a bit ridiculous. I mean, there’s so much . . . garbage. . . floating around about the End Of The World and all of it happening this very month. . . I mean. . . Really?

Planets millions of miles away are going to get into a specific formation and we’re going to suddenly all die?

A planet the size of Earth is going to suddenly appear in the sky and weak gravitational havoc on our planet until the two colossal cosmic spheres collide?

It’s become so bad that NASA had to put up a webpage debunking all the garbage floating around. The scientists behind the page specifically address the whole bit about the Mayan long calendar cycle ending and that foretelling the end of the world. They make an extremely good analogy. We have this sort of thing happen to us every single year. Your calendar ends on Dec. 31 every year. The world doesn’t end. It just means we need to get a new calendar.

If the Mayans were still around as a civilization, I’m sure they’d be out shopping for huge stone boulders right now.

Seriously, dudes, get a grip on your reasoning.

Just because it’s old doesn’t mean it’s got some special insight into the universe as we know it. In fact, considering how whacked out so many of the ideas held by ancient peoples turned out to be, I’d say there’s a better chance that we here near the future, on the bleeding edge of history, carving out the newest year. . . I’d say we have a better chance of being right when predicting what might happen in the near future.

And all those rocket scientists who actually are doing, you know, rocket science? They’re all making plans to show up at work on Dec. 22. I think we can all rest easy next week. I really do.

It’s going to be a normal Friday. Go out. Enjoy. And don’t blame the end of the world on your hangover.